Light Tiramisu Mousse Cake – Something Special for the Last Day of March

As promised from the last post, today I will share with you my beloved Light Tiramisu recipe. Well, many have raved on this, and when I said “rave”, I meant it. What is Tiramisu anyway other than whipped mascarpone cheese with raw eggs and sugar? To me, a classic Tiramisu is a little too “sinful”, an deadly pleasure of enjoying pure fat and sweetness…

But the temptation for this is to big, I have to experiment many times to make mine still taste great, but lighter than the traditional, for my consciousness, and for my tummy as well. I cracked the code on my third try, and have been using this recipe ever since. What I do is add whipping cream and Swiss meringue to lighten the thing up, and then stabilize the batter with gelatin. I proudly present to you my version of Light Tiramisu (Mousse).

Hard to imagine but quite excited to know? Me too.

Recipe(slightly adapted from Trang’s Kitchen on Opera, but since Opera is closed, I cannot link this back to her blog)😦

(Or lady finger if you want to go traditional. I once made and built a tower of lady finger for this cake, tasted awesome)

Mix 1 – Cheese:

400g mascarpone cheese (room temperature)

250g whipping cream

Mix 3 – White mix:

2 egg whites

70g sugar

Mix 2 – Yolk mix:

2 egg yolks

30g sugar

Mix 3 – Gelatin mix:

15 g gelatin powder

75g cold water

Mix 4 – Soaking syrup

50g sugar

50ml water

1 bag of dark instant coffee or 2 shot of your strongest espresso

1 shot of Kahlua/dark rum (optional, leave out if you make this for kids)

Topping

Dark cocoa powder

Cocoa nips/ dark chocolate chips (optional)

Demonstration

Well, look at the recipe above; that is one hell of mixes. But don’t worry, one by one, we’ll work them all out. And the best part is, I have arranged this recipe in a way that, you don’t have to wash your balloon whisk all the time, just use the same one step after another, it is OK.

Step 1: We start with mix 4 and work our way up, OK?🙂 Boil sugar with water, then mix in the instant/espresso shot and liquor. Leave till cool, done.

Step 2: Sprinkle gelatin powder onto cold water. You need to let the gelatin sit and “bloom” in order for it to work its magic. Mix 3, done preparing for now.

Step 3: Over a double boiler, using a spatula to mix egg white with sugar until the sugar all dissolved and the mixture is hot to touch (remember, how Salmonella can be killed at 45 degree C). Here is my system.

Then take them out of the boiler and beat them until stiff peak and cool.

Step 4: Beat egg yolk with its portion of sugar over a double boiler till pale and thick (same rule as the white).

Step 5: Now back to the gelatin mix. It has bloomed and thickened, right? Now put it into the microwave and turn that one for 10-20 second, or dip it in the hot water, till the gelatin all melted. Let cool for 5 mins.

Step 10: divide the Hong Kong Gateau horizontally into 3-4 slices of about 1.5-2 cm thickness depending on your preference. I like my mousse part to be thicker so I cut the cake into 4 parts, use 2 of them, and save 2 for other times.

Step 11: In a loose-bottomed cake pan place 1 slice of cake, damp it well with the soaking syrup.

Step 12: Spread on 1 layer of Tiramisu mix, about ½ of the total.

On top of that, another layer of cake, damp it well again.

And finally, the rest of the Tiramisu mix.

Step 13: flatten the top and remove any uninvited big air bubble inside the cake by banging the pan against the counter couple of times.

Step 14: Now cover the top with some cling firm and let it rest in the refrigerator for at least 4 good hours but preferred overnight, no peaking, no cheating.

Step 15: One day after, get the mousse out of the pan by warm up the pan using a blowtorch, or just run a thin knife around the edges.

Step 16: Right before serving, sprinkle the top with dark cocoa powder, some cocoa nips or dark chocolate chips (optional). And dream on. Here I use some cool stencil to create this pattern.

Here is my mini Tiramisu. My god, so cute, and so, so good.

Last Christmas, I made a tiramisu log for 2 special customers.

Working with chocolate was always fun and challenging. But the result is so worth it.🙂